A flash of bright colors caught my eye as I drove past this house so I tuned around to see what it was.
As a follow up to yesterday's post, I decided to do a little more playing with that editing app to see what other "Superman" images I could conjure up.
This one is from a photo of me with Tower Bridge in the background.
It looks like the River Thames has been paved over!
This one is also a photo of me standing next the Tardis from Dr. Who.
In this one it looks like Superman has brought along the instruction manual for operating a Tardis.
And, here I am sitting on the front patio of my friend Glenda's house.
Just look at those muscles!
I tried the same effect on a photo of an angel statue and this one turned out rather strangely. There is a sort of sinister look to this guy. I think he might be about to cast a spell.
I was playing around with one of the options in my photo editing app and discovered one particular option that intrigued me. I used a photo I posted back in 2024 of an artwork at the Celebration of Fine Arts. You can see the original piece in my photo here. I loved this version of that same art work created by my editing app.
When I'm working with a photo, this option gives me multiple versions but in order to see each option I have to select the each of those samples at the bottom of the screen one at a time.
Zuni Girl is a sculpture by Native American artist Doug Hyde. She stands in a quiet corner near where the parking lot meets the courtyard at the Heard Museum. I thought I had posted a photo of her before so I went back and looked and sure enough I did a post a photo of her 10 years ago.
Back then, there were no plants around to shade her. She looks much better with all the plants around her and casting soft shadows.
As I mentioned yesterday, here are three more employee art pieces that were on display at the Heard Museum.
The one above is three individual round canvases painted by Sylvia Richardson a sales support specialist. It's called "Messengers: Cicada, Butterfly & Dragonfly". They were painted in acrylic paint.
To the left is a piece called "Airborne Worm Dance II" by Jay Payestewa - Daugherty who is a shop associate and buyer. This one is a mixed media piece.
This last one is painted by Rebeka Peshlakai who is the Institutional Giving Coordinator. It's called "Hi Dad". Her message said it was a painting of one of her dad's favorite fishing spots. I particularly love the way she painted the clouds and cliffs in this one.
I'm always impressed by the amount of talent that makes up our world.
I took this photo in the room at the Heard Museum where the Artful Mornings lectures are held. You can see the beaded bag and the soft sculpture I featured yesterday on the table. About once a year, this room is filled with art works that are created by members of the Heard Museum staff. You can see three of them behind the speaker.
I really like the one to the left also. It was painted by Nolan Lightfoot (security officer) and it's called "The Hunt". If you look closely in the bottom left corner, you will see a figure in a red shirt among all that yellow. It made me think of someone making his way among a forest of aspen trees.
I'll show you a couple more tomorrow.
Yesterday morning, I was at the Heard Museum for another Artful Morning lecture. This time it was about artist Jamie Okuma.
Ms. Okuma has been working with beads since she was 4 years old and her artistic career has evolved into fashion and what is called 'soft sculpture'.
She created the outfit and the beaded bag to the left.
Here is an example of a soft sculpture. It also contains a lot of beaded work.
She created this beaded bag for the 2025 Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market. The whole thing is carefully beaded.
When I was at the Phoenix Art Museum last weekend, I happened to step into a little windowed alcove and discovered this fellow sitting there and enjoying the view. You might remember him. He's been on my blog several times before. It's a sculpture called "Naked Man" by Viola Frey.
The museum staff tend to move him around quite a bit. At present he has this small alcove all to himself.
You might remember that I found his fully-clothed "sister" at the Tucson Art Museum back in 2024.
I hope he's enjoying this nice quiet spot. Who knows how long it will be before he gets moved again.
Romero created box like structures to highlight photos of young women in various native regalia. This one is a photo of Naomi and is themed California Culture.
This one is a photo of Julia surrounded by nature's bounty. I loved how she created these elaborate borders around each box setting.
This photo is another obvious take on the famous Annie Leibovitz photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She calls it "Two Virgins".
The exhibit was broken into several themed sections. The section above dealt with female empowerment.
It was a busy weekend. On Friday I saw that the Phoenix Art Museum got a mention in the New York Times about a spring exhibit called "Color Wear: Kaleidoscope of Fashion." It was curated to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Phoenix Art Museum's Fashion collection. I'll have a few photos to share in the coming days. On my way to see the exhibit, I passed this sort of Calder-like mobile sculpture. I discovered it was created by Tuan Andrew Nguyen from metal scraps from unexploded artillery and bomb shells salvaged in Viet Nam. If you look closely, you will see my reflection in one of those discs.
I went inside the very busy Western Spirit Museum with the goal of seeing how the new addition to the museum had changed the layout. I got stopped in my tracks by an exhibit of student art work that the museum had commissioned at schools across the state. The talent in these young people was very uplifting to see.
The above is a colored pencil drawing by Camila Aguilar Fiedler, a 5th grade student.
To the left is a water color by Piper Frost, a 6th grade student.
The piece above is a watercolor by Adeline Solomon a 4th grader.
To the left is a watercolor and pencil piece by Everly Askew who is in the 6th grade.
When I was at the Heard Museum last Saturday, I took another look at the exhibit called Kay WalkingStick/Hudson River School. I wrote about it on January 24th. WalkingStick is a Cherokee artist who paints natural scenes combined with abstract and Native American symbols and she paints canvases that compliment each other like the two above. The paintings above are called "Late Summer on the Ramapo".
This one is called "July Low Water". It has such a summer look to it like what you would see standing on the edge of a pond or stream.
This one is called "Aquidneck Cliffs" and is her painting of the cliffs on Aquidneck Island.
I'm glad I took another look at this exhibit. Along with the beauty of the paintings, I learned about places in the east that I had not heard of before.
While I was in Scottsdale last weekend, I stopped in at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum was in the midst of an exhibit change so there were only two exhibits on view. This one is called Pathfinding by artist Evan Roth. It had two components, a slow moving video of sky images and a series of quilts inspired by the sky. The video was slow paced visions of clouds passing across the sun. It was quiet and relaxing.
The second piece was a series of quilts all designed with inspirations from sky scenes.
I only took photos of two of the quilts but they were all interesting to see.
Art comes at us in many, many ways.
He had one sculpture in his little space that I liked very much.
There is always a lot of art on display at this annual event. I also enjoy talking with the artists. That opportunity makes this event pretty special.
Shannon Leigh has her own very distinctive style of painting her mostly western paintings. I had to study that one to the right to see the cowgirl emerge.
